Garden Last updated · owner ratings verified July 2026
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Side by side
| Bissell Bissell CleanView Swivel Rewind Pet Upright, 2254 Best value overall $110–150 Check price | Bissell Bissell CleanView Swivel Pet Upright (no rewind) Cheapest way in $85–115 Check price | Our pick Shark Shark Navigator Lift-Away Upright Best filtration $150–200 Check price | Shark Shark Navigator Lift-Away with Self-Cleaning Brushroll Best for long hair $180–230 Check price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What owners rate it | ||||
| Owner rating | 4.5 / 5 (103,384) | 4.5 / 5 (103,389) | 4.4 / 5 (30,770) | 4.2 / 5 (7,365) |
| Specifications | ||||
| Format | Corded bagless upright | Corded bagless upright | Corded bagless upright with detachable pod | Corded bagless upright with detachable pod |
| Brushroll | Triple-action, always driven, no shutoff | Triple-action, always driven, no shutoff | Motorized, with a bare-floor shutoff | Self-cleaning — a comb strips hair as it turns |
| Detaches for stairs | One-piece body — no detachable canister | One-piece body — no detachable canister | Yes — canister detaches for stairs and above-floor work | Yes — canister detaches for stairs and above-floor work |
| Carpet height control | Multiple height settings for carpet pile | Multiple height settings for carpet pile | Floor-type selector rather than a pile dial | Floor-type selector rather than a pile dial |
| Filtration | Washable pre-motor filter, no sealed HEPA path | Washable pre-motor filter, no sealed HEPA path | Sealed anti-allergen system with washable HEPA | Sealed anti-allergen system with washable HEPA |
| Weight | Around 15 lb | Around 14 lb | Around 14 lb assembled | Around 14 lb assembled |
| Cord | About 25 ft with one-touch rewind | About 25 ft, manual wrap | About 25 ft, manual wrap | About 25 ft, manual wrap |
| Tools in the box | Crevice tool, pet turbo brush, extension wand | Crevice tool, pet turbo brush, extension wand | Crevice tool, dusting brush, upholstery tool | Crevice tool, upholstery tool, pet multi-tool |
| Who it suits | ||||
| Best for | Carpeted rooms on one level, with the cord problem solved | The same carpet result if you can wind a cord yourself | Allergy households, stairs and upholstery | Households where hair strangles a brushroll every month |
Ratings are aggregated Amazon owner ratings, not our own testing. Figures verified July 2026.
Pros and cons
Bissell CleanView Swivel Rewind Pet Upright, 2254
- Triple-action brushroll agitates medium-pile carpet as hard as vacuums costing twice as much
- One-touch cord rewind removes the single most irritating chore of owning a corded upright
- Swivel steering makes it genuinely easy to work around chair legs rather than reversing out of them
- Filters and the dirt cup are washable, so the running cost is close to zero
- Not a sealed system — fine dust escapes around the cup seal, which matters if anyone has allergies
- The whole body has to be lifted for stairs, and it is heavier than it looks doing that
- Amazon pools ratings across the CleanView family, so the score covers several similar models
- Owners repeatedly report hair wrapping the brushroll and needing to be cut off every few weeks
Bissell CleanView Swivel Pet Upright (no rewind)
- Same brushroll and airflow as the Rewind model for roughly $30 less
- Slightly lighter without the rewind mechanism, which is the part most likely to fail
- Sold in most big-box stores, so a replacement belt or filter is easy to walk in and buy
- The specialized pet tool actually pulls embedded hair out of upholstery rather than skating over it
- Wrapping 25 ft of cord onto hooks by hand gets old fast in a large house
- Same unsealed filtration limitation as the Rewind model
- Plastic body flexes and creaks under the handle over time
- Shares the pooled CleanView rating rather than carrying its own score
Shark Navigator Lift-Away Upright
- Anti-allergen sealed system plus a HEPA filter — the dust that goes in does not come back out the exhaust
- The canister lifts off the body in one motion, which turns a 14 lb upright into a hand-carried pod for stairs
- Brushroll shutoff lets you cross a hardwood transition without scattering grit
- Owner reviews across a very large pool consistently describe it lasting years rather than seasons
- Costs roughly 50 percent more than an equivalent Bissell for the same carpet pickup
- In Lift-Away mode you are dragging a hose and a pod, which is clumsy on open floor
- Owners report the hose developing cracks near the cuff after a few years, and it is not cheap to replace
- Heavier at the handle than the spec weight suggests once the canister is full
Shark Navigator Lift-Away with Self-Cleaning Brushroll
- The self-cleaning brushroll is the one feature on this page that solves a problem the others do not — hair does not wrap
- Keeps the sealed HEPA path and the Lift-Away pod from the standard Navigator
- Swivel steering is noticeably lighter in the wrist than the older Navigator body
- Owners with long-haired dogs consistently single this out as the reason they stopped cutting hair off a roller
- The most expensive vacuum here, and the self-cleaning comb is the only functional difference from the cheaper Navigator
- Comb teeth pack with fine fluff on high-pile rugs and need clearing anyway, just less often
- Smaller owner-rating pool than the classic Navigator, so the long-term record is thinner
- Still not a stair vacuum in upright mode — you use the pod, and the pod has no motorized brush
Decision factors
What you actually pay
Bissell’s CleanView uprights land between $85 and $150 depending on whether you want cord rewind. Shark’s Navigator Lift-Away line runs $150 to $230. On carpet pickup alone that gap is hard to justify: both brands drive a stiff brushroll at similar speed through a similar airflow path, and the owner-rating consensus does not separate them on how clean the carpet gets.
What the Shark premium actually buys is the sealed filtration path and the detachable pod. A sealed system means the air that leaves the exhaust has been through the HEPA element rather than around it — that is a real, measurable difference for anyone with asthma or a dust allergy, and it is the reason to spend the extra $60. The pod matters if you have stairs, because carrying a full-size upright up a flight is how uprights get dropped.
Running costs favor both brands equally and are genuinely low. Neither uses bags. Both have washable filters that should be rinsed monthly and dried fully before refitting — a damp filter is the most common cause of a burning smell, covered in why does my vacuum smell like burning. Budget for a replacement belt on the Bissell every couple of years at under $10, and a replacement HEPA element on the Shark every year or two at around $20 to $30.
The hidden cost on both is hair. Every model here except the self-cleaning Shark will collect a rope of hair around the brushroll that chokes airflow and eventually loads the motor. Cutting it off takes five minutes and costs nothing, but if nobody in the house will actually do it, the self-cleaning Shark is worth the $50 over the standard Navigator purely as insurance.
Which one fits you
- Carpeted apartment, tight budget, no allergies Bissell CleanView Swivel Pet It agitates carpet as hard as anything here for the least money, and one level means the stair advantage is worth nothing to you.
- Allergy or asthma household Shark Navigator Lift-Away The sealed anti-allergen path plus a washable HEPA element is the only genuine filtration answer on this page.
- Two-story house with carpeted stairs Shark Navigator Lift-Away The detachable pod turns a stair session from a wrestling match into a five-minute job with a hand-held.
- Long-haired dog, long-haired people, or both Shark Navigator with Self-Cleaning Brushroll It is the only model here that stops hair wrapping the roller, which is the failure that ends most budget uprights early.
If neither is right
- Hoover WindTunnel 3 Max Performance Pet Upright Sits between the two brands on price with HEPA media filtration and a wider cleaning path. Worth a look if you want Shark-style filtration nearer Bissell money and do not need a detachable pod.
- Kenmore Intuition Bagged Upright The bagged answer. A sealed bag holds fine dust far better than any bagless cup and you never tip a cloud of it into a trash can, at the cost of buying bags forever. The best choice if allergies are the whole reason you are shopping.
- Shark Rocket Ultra-Light Corded Stick If most of your floor is hard and you only have area rugs, a full-size upright is the wrong tool. This weighs a third as much and stores in a closet gap.
Which one should you buy?
Buy the Bissell CleanView if your carpet is on one floor and nobody in the house has a dust allergy. Buy the Shark Navigator Lift-Away if either of those is not true. On raw carpet pickup the two brands are close enough that the owner-rating consensus does not separate them, so the decision comes down to two features Bissell does not offer at this price: a sealed filtration path and a canister that detaches.
Do they actually clean carpet differently?
Not meaningfully, and this surprises people who expect the more expensive machine to pull more out. Deep carpet cleaning is mostly mechanical — a stiff brushroll spinning fast enough to flex the pile and knock grit loose so airflow can carry it away. Both brands do this competently at every price point discussed here.
Where they differ is control. Bissell gives you a height dial, which lets you drop the head onto low-pile and lift it for a shag rug. Shark uses a floor-type selector that also shuts the brushroll off for bare floors. On thick carpet the Bissell dial is arguably the more useful control; on mixed flooring the Shark shutoff is. Neither is a reason to choose a brand.
The consensus across a very large pool of owner reviews on both lines is consistent on one point: performance falls off a cliff when the filter is dirty or the brushroll is wrapped, and that happens far faster than most owners expect. A well-maintained $90 Bissell out-cleans a neglected $200 Shark every time.
How much does sealed filtration really matter?
It depends entirely on who lives in the house. A vacuum without a sealed system pulls dust in, pushes most of it through the filter, and lets a fraction escape through gaps around the dirt cup and the housing joints. For a healthy household that fraction is a non-issue. For someone with asthma or a dust-mite allergy it is the difference between vacuuming helping and vacuuming triggering symptoms.
Shark’s Navigator line is built with an anti-allergen seal around the whole path plus a washable HEPA element. Bissell’s CleanView is not sealed and does not claim to be. If allergies are the reason you are replacing a vacuum, that single line decides it — and a bagged machine, where the dust never gets tipped back into the air, is better still. Our take on that trade-off is in bagged versus bagless vacuums.
Which brand handles stairs better?
Shark, and it is not close. Lift-Away is a genuinely good piece of design: the dirt cup and motor pod unclip from the floor head so you can carry roughly half the machine in one hand while the hose reaches the tread. Anyone who has tried to balance a full-size upright three steps up understands why this matters.
The Bissell has no equivalent. You lift the whole vacuum, or you use the hose and wand from the bottom of the stairs and reach as far as the cord and hose allow. It works on a short flight. On a full staircase it is unpleasant enough that people stop doing it, which is the real cost.
One honest caveat about Lift-Away: the pod has no motorized brush, so on carpeted stairs you are relying on suction and a hand tool rather than agitation. It is much better than nothing and much worse than a dedicated stair vacuum. The full field is in our stair vacuum picks.
Which one lasts longer?
Shark has the longer proven record in this format, and the owner consensus reflects it. The usual Shark failure points are the hose cracking near the cuff after several years and the brushroll bearing giving out — both survivable, both a parts order. Bissell CleanView failures cluster earlier and around the belt, the height mechanism and, on the Rewind model, the cord retractor.
That said, the honest comparison is per dollar rather than per year. Two CleanViews cost about what one Navigator does. If a Bissell gives you four or five years and a Shark gives you seven or eight, the economics are a wash and the decision goes back to filtration and stairs.
What actually kills both is neglect. Hair wrapped on the roller, a filter that has never been rinsed, and a hose blocked by a sock will finish a vacuum of either brand long before its bearings would. The maintenance rhythm that avoids this is in our vacuum maintenance schedule, and how long a vacuum cleaner should last has the realistic numbers.
Is the self-cleaning brushroll worth $50?
If anyone in the house has long hair, yes. It is the only feature on this page that eliminates a recurring chore rather than making it slightly easier. A comb sits against the brushroll and strips hair off as it turns, so the rope that normally builds up over a month never forms.
It is not magic. Fine fluff and pet undercoat still pack between the comb teeth on high-pile rugs, and you will still take the base plate off occasionally. But the difference between clearing a roller every month and clearing it twice a year is the difference between a vacuum that stays at full suction and one that quietly gets worse until you replace it.
The bottom line
Bissell’s CleanView is the best carpet cleaning per dollar in this comparison and there is no shame in buying it — for a single-story carpeted home with no allergy issues it is the rational choice. Shark’s Navigator Lift-Away costs more and gives you two things Bissell does not sell at this price: air that has genuinely been filtered, and a machine that comes apart for stairs.
The wider field, including Hoover, Kenmore and the bagged options, is in our budget carpet vacuum roundup. If you are weighing other brand pairs, see Bissell vs Dyson, Hoover vs Shark and Kenmore vs Bissell. Every ranking on this site comes from aggregated owner ratings and expert consensus rather than first-hand use — see how we rank.